


All this Time

by lulumonnie



Series: It's called ineffability, bitch [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Allllll the fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, Footnotes, Getting Together, God is an Ally yall, How Do I Tag, Humor, I was severly sleep-deprived when I wrote this i take no responsibility for the weirdness, It's just ineffable husbands being ineffable, M/M, Mentions of Newt and Anathema, Mutual Pining, Pride, She's waited 6000 years for heaven's sake, and God being tetchy because they don't get a goddamn move on already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulumonnie/pseuds/lulumonnie
Summary: Crowley takes Aziraphale up on an old promise in their own little part of Eden.





	All this Time

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this because I walked home through a park and got inspired so here, have some ineffable husbands picknick fluff.

It was a very nice day. This was a change from the otherwise quite unsettled weather that usually reigned in London. Aziraphale looked out of his newly restored bookshop’s window and smiled wistfully. He saw a dove flying past his window. This seemed to happen quite a lot in the last few weeks following Armageddon’t, as Crowley had so eloquently started to call the disaster that was the averted apocalypse. The metaphysical significance of doves flying past bookshops owned by angels would be an interpretative marvel for any high school teacher trying to force their poor students to interpret every single object in a poem, but to Aziraphale, that whole business seemed to be rather tedious and superfluous1. He still held on to the slight belief that overinterpretation was one of Crowley’s demonic inventions2, narrowing his eyes whenever the subject was brought up.

Aziraphale smiled despite himself. He seemed quite unable to do anything but smile when he thought of his- the demon. THE demon. Aziraphale shook his head to get rid of his intrusive thoughts. Yes, Crowley had said that they were on their own side now, but he could have meant that in so many different ways, couldn’t he? They were friends. That was all. Hell, it had taken Aziraphale 6000 years to even admit that they were. Aziraphale looked at the lone plant he’d saved3 from Crowley’s place the night before the trials. He smiled again, sadder this time. He loved the demon with all his heart. It wasn’t the all-encompassing, otherworldly, obligatory love he felt for every living being in his duties as a pathetic excuse for an angel. No, it was heart-wrenching, gut-clenching, completely overwhelming, wonderful and terrifying, thrilling and anxiety-inducing. There simply wasn’t a feeling more complex and intricate but Aziraphale felt that was only appropriate. If there was anything he had learned over the course of his long, long life, it was that the relationship between the angel and Crowley was nothing if not complex. He shook his head again. It was no good, dwelling on thoughts like those. Crowley cared for him as well but he knew that demons simply _couldn’t_ love. It was part of the job description, as Crowley liked to say4.

* * *

1 This tended to happen to people who knew the authors personally. In nearly every case, knowing the mess of an author gives perspective on the depth of the analysis necessary to understand their books.

2 It wasn’t. Gabriel, without understanding a thing about material objects thought it ought to be good that children of the Lord studied the Bible intensely and thus forced millions of poor students to always see an iceberg not as an actual iceberg but as an abstract form of danger, depth and desperation. There was one incident with a specific ship and an iceberg that might have been influenced by this particular human mindset.

3 read: nicked

4 Unbeknownst to Aziraphale, God shook her head and facepalmed. _I thought you were clever_, she groaned.

* * *

The crash of the shop door opening shook the angel out of his thoughts. None other than the serpent of Eden walked, or rather sauntered in, his hips seemingly boneless5. He was carrying a basket. A closed basket, that seemed to have something inside. Aziraphale gasped.

“Already? I thought they’d give us more time to get settled again!”

Crowley blinked at him from behind his sunglasses.

“What?”, he said, intellectually.

“The Antichrist!”, the angel replied, his usual fussiness replaced by the beginnings of complete and utter panic.

“What’s he done this time? Did he turn your Oscar Wilde first editions into the Twilight saga again? Because I swear, I had nothing to do with that6”, Crowley answered, one eyebrow lifted, as he did so often7.

“What? No, I’m not talking about Adam, I mean the new Antichrist!”, Aziraphale answered, his voice rising in pitch as he got closer to hysterics.

“What new Antichrist? Angel, have you been drinking without me? There is no new Antichrist, I don’t even know how you’ come up with that idea- Ohhhh”, he trailed off.

Both of their gazes wandered to the suspicious basket Crowley was holding, Aziraphale with complete and utter horror, while Crowley’s mouth started to twitch. Then he burst out into laughter. It was a deep, rich laughter, full of soul and genuine amusement and if Aziraphale hadn’t been so frightened, he would have noticed how beautiful that sound was. He’d been hearing it quite a lot in the past few weeks, ever since the Apocadidn’t.

“Angel, there is no need to worry. I’m not carrying around the next Antichrist. I mean why the hell would I do that anyways? Do you really think downstairs would just give me another Antichrist after I managed to screw it up so royally last time? I don’t even think they’ll go near me again. Not when I can survive holy water”, Crowley answered, clearly smug as hell.

“…but, my dear, you’re holding a basket”, the angel retorted, still shaky.

“Yes, I am. Very observant of you. Do you know what baskets are used for except for carrying Lucifer’s son? No? Well, I’ll tell you! It’s carrying food”, Crowley shot back.

“But- Food?”

“Yes, angel. Food. You promised me long ago that we’d go for a picknick one day. Well, I’m here to make sure that you stay true to that promise”, Crowley said, his tone softening as he saw how affected the other had become.

“Picknick?”, Aziraphale repeated slowly.

“Yes. You, me, food and wine on a blanket. In St. James’s Park. Today.”

Aziraphale stared.

“Look, Aziraphale”, Crowley said, his voice lowering gently as the angel perked up. Crowley rarely mentioned his name, preferring to call him angel mostly8. “There won’t be another Antichrist. We’re fine. Heaven and Hell are exhausted, and you know that Adam set the world right again. I know that it seems too, for lack of a better word, good to be true, but don’t you think after the last eleven years, we deserve some peace and quiet for once?”

Aziraphale nodded tentatively. “We barely did anything though”, he murmured. Crowley smiled at that and walked over to where the angel was standing. Without uttering a word, he put his free hand on Aziraphale’s, a gesture they’d picked up now that they had familiarised with the other’s body and were no longer bound to behave appropriately according to their sides. Crowley squeezed his hand, sending light shivers of electricity up both their arms. It was funny, Aziraphale mused. They had both lived several millennia, yet here he was feeling as unexperienced and young as a fifteen-year-old.

“Come on”, Crowley said and Aziraphale let himself be tugged out of the shop, waving his hand to lock the door on their way out.

* * *

5 They were, in fact, boneless. When Crowley had first switched from snake to human-shaped form, there hadn’t exactly been an instruction manual on how to correctly assemble the bones in the human body and the weird oblong shape with the huge round donut in the middle just seemed entirely out of place anywhere he had tried to put it, so he did the only sensible thing and just left it out, as humans would later do with screws of IKEA furniture they couldn’t place. Crowley’s influence on the human race was quite apparent in many cases, this being one of them.

6 He did. It had been Crowley’s idea, mostly spurred on by childish jealousy for an author long dead.

7 Mostly because of or around Aziraphale.

8 Which pleased the angel immensely, especially once he’d heard Newton call Anathema angel on more than one occasion.

* * *

It took them only a few minutes to get to St. James’s Park, mostly due to Crowley ignoring every traffic regulation imaginable9. As they got out of the car, Crowley glared at one stone step that was in the way of his door opening and it promptly jumped out of the way. Aziraphale tutted.

“Really, my dear, you could just park like a normal person”.

“Well angel, I’ll have you know that I’m _not_ normal”.

Crowley shook his head, failing to hide his fondness. He picked up the basket from the backseat and motioned for Aziraphale to follow him. The angel still seemed apprehensive about the contents of the basket but followed the demon without a word. They walked past a group of young adults, all dressed in extremely colourful rainbow clothing and wearing what seemed like flags as capes, hats, earrings, belts, socks and even sunglasses. The two shared a look that indicated that they would simply not question why they couldn’t recognise any of the countries10.

The angel and the demon walked through the park they knew so well in amiable silence for a while longer, avoiding larger crowds that seemed to be gathered at different intersections. Crowley seemed slightly distracted, his gaze flickering from bush to bush, until he let out a silent whoop and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand again, making the other smile broadly, to lead him towards a small opening in the bushes, slipping through with serpentine elegance. Behind a shorter bit of bush tunnel, a small clearing opened up, entirely untouched and full of soft green grass, littered with daisies and forget-me-nots. Aziraphale’s breath caught. The bushes and trees around the clearing had grown to form a cove, sunlight shining though the branches as the light hit the ground in patches, giving the whole place a warm, slightly eerie feeling.

Crowley reached into the basket and Aziraphale was startled into remembering his presence. The demon had taken out a blanket from the depths of the blasted basket and was spreading it over the middle of the clearing, moving to set the basket beside and began taking out two plates, two wine glasses and several containers of food. Aziraphale stared at him.

“Well, are you going to stand there all day, or do you want to have lunch?”, the demon asked.

Aziraphale kept staring. There was a ray of sunlight hitting the back of Crowley’s head and his bright red hair was illuminated with such ferocity that Aziraphale could have sworn he’d seen Crowley’s halo return11. The angel was stunned into absolute silence as he looked at the sight before him. The being he was undoubtedly and irrevocably in love with, in the middle of a clearing that would have given the Garden a run for its money, holding out a plate with angel cake and a glass of fine wine. It took all his self-control and all his angelic power not to burst into tears right then and there and confess his feelings, laying bare his soul to the wonderful demon before him.

* * *

9 And Aziraphale sneakily miracling street-lamps, bollards and one small fruit stand out of the way and any pedestrians into the arms of their loved ones. This caused some rather interesting situations, as one woman was suddenly transported into the arms of her long-lost lover, who happened to be on holiday in the Philippines. Both women had a hard time coming to terms with what just happened, but the subsequent tearful reunion overshadowed any unintentional confusion caused by Aziraphale.

10 God, who was still watching, resisted the urge to facepalm again. She’d really picked the stupidest angel and demon to be different, hadn’t she? Shaking her head at her own ineffability, she smiled down at the group of younglings, who were themselves smiling after the two retreating figures of Aziraphale and Crowley. With a quick thought, God made sure that the group would live to be old and happy in the future, all while chuckling mysteriously.

11 God cackled, winked at the sun and helped herself to some more popcorn.

* * *

Crowley was beginning to look worried when Aziraphale finally managed to free himself from his stupor and sat down next to the demon to take the offered food and beverage. Their knees brushed on the small blanket and Aziraphale felt like his heart would jump out of its cage if this continued12.

“You seem a bit… out of it. Are you okay?” Crowley asked, still worried that the angel might be thinking that Armageddon had come again.

“No, I’m fine”, Aziraphale said, surprising himself with his raspy, breathless voice, “It’s just… you look really nice today”.

Aziraphale had no idea where the courage to say something so bold came from. He half expected to be shoved against the next wall13, but the demon in question seemed to blush. Aziraphale stared a bit more. He hadn’t even known demons could blush.

“Tha- thank you angel. You’re not so bad on the eyes yourself. Even if you insist on wearing that horrendous tartan bowtie everywhere”, he responded, his eyes flitting between the angel and the piece of string from the blanket he was fiddling with. He looked a bit like a nervous teenager. Aziraphale tried to fake insolence at the jab at his favourite bowtie but he didn’t seem to succeed as the small smile on Crowley’s face only grew bigger.

Rustling in the leaves above distracted them momentarily as a dove and a raven came flying down into the clearing, landing near the blanket and looking at the two man-shaped beings in front of them. The raven seemed to look at Aziraphale, cocking his head and looking at him with intelligent eyes. Aziraphale felt awe overcome him as he marvelled at yet another one of God’s creatures. She really did have an eye for designing14.

Next to him, Crowley let out a sound that was almost a giggle. The angel looked around and saw that the dove had hopped onto his head and was now balancing on one foot. Aziraphale blinked and then shrugged. By all the things demons tended to have on their heads, doves were by far the most harmless15.

“Look angel, I’m Beelzzzzzzebub!”, he said, his eyes taking on a slightly mad glint as he made buzzing sounds.

“My dear, what on earth are you doing?”

“…’m trying to get you to laugh”, Crowley grumbled.

Aziraphale felt a surge of affection welling up inside him. He leaned forwards and linked his pinky finger with Crowley’s, too overcome with affection to formulate a sentence. Crowley smiled a small, secret smile, his eyes lighting up at the loving gesture16. A few long moments passed in silence; a warm, comfortable silence that could only be accomplished by two beings that had known each other for thousands of years.

* * *

12 For a being that doesn’t actually need a heart, that is a very peculiar sensation.

13 Really, choosing the word nice specifically wasn’t his best decision.

14 Apart from horses. And fossil fuels. And depression amongst teenagers.

15 And the most adorable.

16 Gabriel, who was sneaking towards heaven’s gate to have a quick smoke was startled, when he suddenly heard the Almighty’s voice echoing throughout all of heaven. _JUST KISS ALREADY WILL YOU_, she shouted, frustrated by the painstakingly slow development.

* * *

When the raven and the dove had moved on from the two, Crowley turned to Aziraphale and murmured: “I found this place back in 1862, after… you know. I thought it looked like the Garden so I… I miracled it so I would be the only one who could find it… but I never came back because it felt wrong to go back to the Garden without you there”.

Aziraphale gasped. Crowley’s sincerity took his breath away. Even though the demon’s eyes were downcast, his expression was one of complete and utter vulnerability and openness.

“Wanted to show you… and I was right… feels so much more like home when you’re here, angel… everything does”, Crowley trailed off.

Aziraphale stared at the other. Took in his messy, gravity-defying hair, his snake tattoo, the fine lines on his face, his soft-looking lips, his deep, beautiful, yellow eyes that were pointedly looking away and a surge of confidence made Aziraphale braver than he’d ever thought he’d be.

“I’m in love with you”, he croaked, listening to his own voice as if it was a stranger’s.

Crowley’s eyes whipped upwards, staring at the angel in utter disbelief.

“I know you don’t feel the same way, and I completely understand that, but it’s true. I’m in love with you, Crowley. Completely and utterly.”

There was a beat of silence and Crowley choked out a gasp.

“You complete and utter idiot. Do you really think that after all this time? All this time? Angel. There is no one on this earth or in this universe that means more to me than you. When I thought I’d lost you I was ready to give up on everything because even Armageddon without you by my side would be unbearable. Aziraphale, angel, I- I’m in love with you too. Have been for the longest time. Ever since you first gave away your sword in Eden”, Crowley answered, his speech hasty and slurred with how shaky he was, gripping onto the angel’s arm like a drowning man on a life line, his other hand slowly moving up towards his angel’s face, softly grazing the skin there, making the emotions in Aziraphale’s throat threaten to spill out.

“Really?”, Aziraphale asked, his voice throaty and full of unspoken feelings.

“Really.”, Crowley answered, his hand still caressing Aziraphale’s face.

That was all it took for the lump in Aziraphale’s throat to finally come undone as he surged forwards to meet Crowley’s lips in a clumsy, inexperienced kiss, their noses bumping together, their knees knocking into each other but both Crowley and Aziraphale felt as though they had finally found what it meant to be at home. Crowley tasted sweet and addicting, earthy and powerful, making Aziraphale’s head spin as the only thing grounding him was Crowley’s vice-like grip on his arm. Aziraphale tasted like angel cake and wine, temptation incarnate and grace incarnate. Crowley felt himself sink more and more into the slow, soft, meaningful kiss, his heart racing and his mind completely void of all thought except one: Aziraphale.

There was no telling how long the kiss lasted, how long the two of them spent staring into each other’s eyes afterwards, touching each other’s faces, exploring forbidden territory that was finally accessible. And if they stayed until late in the clearing, enjoying each other’s company and left only to be greeted by the first group of bystanders they had seen earlier, who gave them bright smiles and a big flag, one of them saying “we all gotta have some pride now, shouldn’t we?”, then no one knew. Well no one except for the people who gave them the strange rainbow flag. And God of course, but that was always a given. And when an angel and a demon entered a bookshop in Soho and spent the entire night holding each other close, never letting go for they had wasted too much time already, all of London around them had the most pleasant night’s rest, full of beautiful dreams and restful moments, and just for once, everything was right in the world17.

* * *

17 And in heaven, where the great sigh of _Finally_ reverberated into the furthest reaches of the celestial plane.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the first work I've posted in the Good Omens fandom even though I've been in it for like six years at this point, so I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
